


The Art of Losing

by Princip1914



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Genderqueer Crowley (Good Omens), Marie Kondo loves mess but she might give up with these fools, Moving In Together, Other, The South Downs Cottage, They/Them Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), is actually kind of hard, when you have six thousand years of physical and metaphorical baggage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princip1914/pseuds/Princip1914
Summary: Being together is easy, moving in together is more of a challenge.Or, two eternal beings attempt to KonMari six thousand years worth of material possessions and memories. It goes about as well as you might imagine.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 57
Kudos: 224





	The Art of Losing

**Author's Note:**

> This story arose out of my desire to write Crowley with they/them pronouns and also my deep skepticism that downsizing from London to a South Downs cottage would be an easy task for two supernatural hoarders who have been kicking it on earth for six millennia.

_Lose something every day. Accept the fluster  
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.  
The art of losing isn’t hard to master._

_Then practice losing farther, losing faster:  
places, and names, and where it was you meant  
to travel. None of these will bring disaster._

_\--Elizabeth Bishop,[One Art](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art) _

In the end, it's easy. It's easy to kiss Aziraphale against the doorjamb of the bookshop after an excellent lunch at The Ritz. It's easy to be kissed back. It's easy, then, to trade off nights--rather more of them, it must be said, spent in the cozy confines of the bookshop than in the sterile and imposing flat in Mayfair--to settle comfortably into one another's pockets. It's so easy, in fact, that by the time winter rolls around to spring, and summer begins to peek hesitantly over the horizon, it seems the most natural thing in the world for Aziraphale to suggest they move in together and even more natural for Crowley to say yes. Finding the cottage is a breeze, and the paperwork, which by rights should have been difficult if not downright arduous, flies by in a (slightly) miraculous haze. It's all incredibly easy until--

"No, Aziraphale, I'm not giving away that glass snake statuette! It was a gift from Charles the First!"

"Yes, but," Aziraphale says, standing over a box which is already full of a wide variety of snake themed artwork that ranges from priceless to well--Crowley supposes they might as well admit it, _kitch_. Aziraphale frowns at them over top of a framed Sailor Jerry rendition of a striking cobra. "Don't you think you ought to thin down your collection a bit?" 

"Oh that's rich, coming from you," Crowley hisses. "How many copies of _Paradise Lost_ do you have, hmm?"

"That's different," Aziraphale snaps. "I run a _bookshop_ \--"

"You and I both know you do no such thing. When's the last time someone bought something from you?"

"Tuesday," Aziraphale says immediately, looking miserable. "It was a professor at University College. Nothing I did could convince her not to leave with one of my Wilde's." 

Aziraphale is doing the eyes again. Crowley sighs. "Tell you what, angel, I'll let the British Museum have all the Egyptian snake art, and I’ll give the Rembrant portrait to the national gallery. Doesn’t look like me anyway, the lighting is far too dark.” 

*

"Aziraphale, why do you need this many overcoats?" Crowley says, a day later, nearly buried in a pile of lush fabrics. 

They have made a strategic retreat from Crowley’s own flat, which despite it’s veneer of minimalism, hides a geometrically improbable expanse of closets, nooks, and fifth dimensions all filled to the brim with things Crowley can’t remember saving and also, it turns out, can’t bear to part with. The upstairs rooms of the bookshop had seemed like an easier task, that is, until Crowley opened a wardrobe that would put C.S. Lewis to shame. 

“This one is from the 13th century, you never wear it anymore," Crowley struggles out from beneath the avalanche of fashion and holds up a bedraggled piece of cloth in their thumb and index finger. 

"Well, they just don't make them like they used to!" Aziraphale says. “Really, it's a perfectly good coat still, there's no reason to get rid of it.” 

"When was the last time you wore this?"

"Oh...1490 or so."

"And it's just been sitting here ever since? You never take it out!"

"Yes, but I always know it's there in case I need it," Aziraphale says mulishly. 

"What possible reason on earth would there be for you to need a 13th century overcoat?" Crowley says, shaking the thing. 

"I suppose there isn't." Aziraphale relents, sighing. "You're quite right my dear, it's just hard to let things go."

Crowley is about to consign the coat to the box marked “charity,” where it would have been the sole occupant, when the sheen satin at the bottom of the wardrobe catches their eye. 

“Aziraphale, don’t tell me you kept your shoes from the Bastille,” Crowley says. “They were absolutely outrageous.” 

"Oh you mean these old things?" Aziraphale asks demurely, reaching down to extract a pair of pink satin pumps from the tottering pile of clothes. "I don’t recall you saying they were outrageous when--” 

“Five minutes,” Crowley chokes out. “I’m going to downstairs for five minutes, and you’re going to put those on, and find where the Heaven the rest of the outfit has gotten off to and put that on too, and then I’m going to come back upstairs and--” 

“--oh, look, they still fit!” Aziraphale beams triumphantly as he slides one of the shoes over the fine delicate arch of his foot, lifting the hem of his trousers to show the perfect knob of an ankle and the taper of a calf. “See I told you it’s important to keep things around.” 

Crowely entirely forgets to argue. 

*

Not a lot of packing had gotten done in the past few days. Hardly any packing at all, actually. Aziraphale and Crowely are trying something new. They are trying to apply a _method_. 

Crowley holds up a tartan tea cosy shot through with holes where the moths have been at it. “Aziraphale, does this spark joy?” 

“Yes!” Aziraphale beams. 

“No, you can’t--” Crowley breaks off. “Not everything can spark joy, that’s the point.” 

“I’m an angel,” Aziraphale bristles. “Everything _does_ spark joy. I can’t help it.” 

“That’s right, you are an angel. You can just use a miracle to keep your tea warm. Why do you need this?” 

“Well, I--” a sort of far away look crosses Aziraphale’s face. “I just have fond memories I suppose. I bought that cozy in 1952, you know, right before I invited you over for tea the first time.” 

“Oh,” Crowley is blindsided by the emotion that rises in them, sudden and fierce.

Aziraphale dabs at his eyes. “I’m sure you don’t even remember that afternoon Crowley, it’s ridiculous for me to get all sentimental over it. We can...we can get rid of the cozy.” 

“No,” Crowley says, determinedly ignoring the sting in their own eyes. “Not a chance, we’re keeping it.” 

*

The Wednesday a week before the movers are set to arrive finds Crowley weeping over the trash bin of a very swanky flat in Mayfair. 

“My dear, what’s the matter,” Aziraphale rushes to them. 

“‘S nothing.” 

“Crowley, you’re crying,” 

“No ‘m not,” Crowley says, wiping a hand over their face. 

“Can I?” Aziraphale asks, and when Crowley nods, folds them in a gentle embrace. 

“It’s just--” Crowley starts, then stops. “It’s just I used to collect--” 

“Collect what, my dear?” Aziraphale asks gently, stroking the top of Crowley’s head. Crowley buries their face in Aziraphale’s shoulder so they won’t have to look at him. 

“Collect your feathers,” Crowlely says all in a rush. “Just when you were molting mind, and when they dropped somewhere and you wouldn’t notice. Never did anything creepy with them, just sort of,” they swallow. “Liked to have them. I thought it would be fine to throw them away. I put them in the trash, but--” 

Something hot and tight rises in Crowley’s throat. They don’t understand. They have Aziraphale now, in every way one being could have another. Aziraphale is holding them now, tight to his chest. They don’t understand why this is so hard. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and there’s the sudden whoosh of displaced air as Crowley is enfolded in a cocoon of white feathers. 

“I don’t understand it,” Crowley says aloud, as Aziraphale rocks them in his wings. “Is it this impossible for humans do you think? The...letting go?” 

“I’m quite sure it is,” Aziraphale says, solid, reasonable, and terribly (wonderfully) composed in the face of Crowley’s little breakdown. “Then again, humans don’t have six thousand years of memories to sift through either, do they?” 

“I don’t want to go back to the past,” Crowley says into Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I like it better right here.” They don’t say, _I like it better with you._ They don’t say _I like it better together._ Aziraphale hears them anyway. 

“I don’t want to live the way we did then either,” Aziraphale says, “always looking over our shoulders. But we were together then, too in a way--a much different way than we are now of course--but still in an important way. Even good change is still change. It’s understandable to be a bit sad about it.” 

“How is it possible that _you_ ,” Crowley says, snuffling into Aziraphale’s shirt, horribly certain they're getting snot all over it, “are lecturing _me_ on change?” 

“Oh I don't know," Aziraphale sighs into Crowley's hair. "I’ve thought a lot about change, in all the time I’ve devoted to resisting it.” 

Crowley stares down at the white feathers in the trash can at their feet, still within the circle of Aziraphale’s wings. 

“Maybe I should just start another great fire, wipe it all out, start fresh…?” 

Aziraphale is smiling. Crowley can feel it even though they can’t see it. “I’m afraid we’ll just have to do this the human way, love.” 

“What, in a panicked rush two days before the movers arrive?” 

“Exactly.” 

*  
In the end, there is a garden. There is a stone garden wall, and apple trees along the wall and a farm pond down the hill and wild July ripened blackberries bursting with flavor. There is a cottage. The walls of the cottage are decorated with an excessive amount of snake-themed artwork, and with floor to ceiling bookshelves. If there are a few more bookshelves, and a few more keepsakes, than there is strictly space for in a three bed four bath “oasis by the sea”, then well--who’s counting really? 

In the end, there is Crowley, standing in the garden with hair down and ripped jeans and shears in their hand (not that they need them--the plants are terrified enough to prune themselves) looking up the hill to where Aziraphale has emerged from the cottage. A tray with a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of gingersnaps is balanced precariously in his soft hands. The ice clinks gently as he walks, the sound carried ahead of him on the hot summer breeze. 

Crowley has had and lost many things in their very long existence--Bronze age trinkets, fashionable brooches, keys to apartments in two dozen cities, all sorts of genders (tried on for size, worn for a while, and discarded), every human friend they have ever made, most recently a flat in Mayfair, and even, once, Divinity itself. There have been fires and floods, and cataclysms and ordinary deaths too countless to remember. 

But Aziraphale is walking towards them across the green earth holding out a cool glass of lemonade. And Crowley knows they would happily lose everything all over again, and it would not be a disaster, because they get to keep this forever--Aziraphale, squinting at them in the sun, perspiring a bit on his forehead not because he has to, but because he wants to, because it’s somehow an interesting and enjoyable faucet of the human experience for him.

“Would you like some lemonade?” He asks. “It’s fresh squeezed, I didn’t even use a miracle.” 

Wordlessly, Crowley takes the glass, hand slipping just a little on the cool condensation, raises it to their mouth and takes a sip. Aziraphale is wrong, they think, not about most of it--not about buying the cottage or accepting change, or even, irritatingly, the need to do things the human way sometimes. He is wrong about the lemonade: it’s the most miraculous thing Crowley has ever tasted.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem I quoted as the epigraph is one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend checking the rest of it (and all of Elizabeth Bishop's work). 
> 
> I hesitated to post this ficlet because I think I might have a desire to expand it in the next few weeks. However, it’s been burning a hole in my google drive and I have no impulse control so I wanted to release it to the world. If I add more later, it will probably be a chapter of cut-scenes, or several of them posted [on tumblr](https://princip1914.tumblr.com)


End file.
